On Wednesday morning, around 5:30, gun shots rang out on the streets of Southwest Philadelphia. In the aftermath lay the unimaginable: a 26-year-old man holding his 10-month-old son.Witnesses say it started with an argument between a man and a woman. Then two men approached. Then gun shots cracked through the air.
The two men fled on foot, apparently after they opened fire on their intended target as he stood in the rear driveway of a home near 56th and Litchfield Street, holding his baby boy.
Police are looking for the suspects, two black men, thought to be 18-20 years old, wearing black hoodies, one with “RL” across the front.
Young, black male, wearing a hoodie is a description that fits a large part of Philadelphia, and now, over recent shootings involving similar-looking suspects, it's one that reads as armed and dangerous.
Their victim lies in critical condition at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania with multiple gun shot wounds to the chest. The baby was not injured.
“The fact that he was shot while holding his son is unbelievable,” says police spokesman Lt. Frank Devore. “It’s outrageous that they would do something like that with a baby right there.”
It’s more than outrageous. It's unconscionable; something that cannot be reasoned with; something that cannot be legislated or regulated; something beyond an education or a job; something that, as the baby cried out while his father fell to the ground, is devoid of all hope.
Perhaps the father thought his baby would shield him, that the shooters, in a moment of conscience, would hold their fire. But the baby is a symbol of our lost humanity, and the nightmare that anyone can get shot in Philadelphia.
And with that the intractable questions arise: Why was the man out so early, and with his baby? What erupted in his life that two men wanted him dead, and the expense of an innocent child? And what becomes of them all now, as well as the rest of us?
(Photo credit: Jeff Fusco)
3 comments:
I am a fan of the HBO series "The Wire." The promos for the new season are now running. The promo says that crime is up, drug dealers are running rampant and a mayoral election is of the utmost importance to the citizens of Baltimore. It ends with the simple words "A New Day..." The cursor then pauses and blinks steadily in place before continung, "...Is Not Dawning."
I immediately thought of Philadelphia and what we're facing now.
After Mayor-elect Michael Nutter won the May primary, he chanted, "A New Day." Again after he won the primary in an overwhelming landslide, he repeated and the Inquirer headlined, "A New Day." I smiled. I believed. And for a moment, I felt hope.
But as the murder and meyhem in Philly continues full speed ahead, I wonder if the promo for "The Wire" was right after all. Maybe a new day is not dawning.
I doubt that any of these perpetrators of crime care who the new police commish or the new mayor are. They just commit crimes. It's what they do. There's nothing rational about their behavior. Given that, why would anyone expect things to change just because the leadership of the city has?
I think Michael Nutter brings hope, but I wonder if its unfair to expect him to fix the culture of violence that plagues our city.
I'm hoping for a new day, but right now...I'm just hoping to make it alive to a new day.
I look around me everyday, on the bus, walking down my own neighborhood and even at the place I work and see young people not caring anymore about the simple things in life. Little kids bum rush a Septa bus, not allowing a 90 y/o woman on first. People ignoring a woman standing holding a small child on a crowded bus and nobody offers her a seat. Simple things like this trickles down in to major things that haunt our city. Respect is gone, get your or die trying, is in. It saddens me to see this.
Back in the day, your neighbors watched over you and your children. Now, children cannot go trick or treating door to door for fear of who will open it and vice versa.
Without respect for the fellow man, this bloodshed will continue to rise to the point of insanity. No jobs will force people to hold onto the Get Rich or Die, Trying mentality.
Mothers cursing out there own children like there grown people, only shows that there is another generation raised in hate that will only make things worse.
Respect is the only thing that can make a start in the stop.
"It's unconscionable; something that cannot be reasoned with; something that cannot be legislated or regulated; something beyond an education or a job"
I especially liked the way they expressed this. I get so sick and tired of us trying to make up an excuse and blame other races for all our problems. Shooting someone holding a baby goes way beyond someone's upbringing, who raised them, "the after effects of slavery", etc. At the end of the day whomever pulled that trigger will forever be responsible for this horrendous act, not anything that may have or did not influence him.
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